As Humanity Lies Barely Skin Deep
by sweetmissbean
Summary: Bootstrap Bill Turner Drabbles.
1. As Humanity Lies Barely Skin Deep

_Broken Compass Drabble Prompt: _Mold

**_-- _**_a superficial often woolly growth produced especially on damp or decaying organic matter or on living organisms by a fungus_

As humanity lies barely skin deep

Bootstrap thrashed, tore at himself, dug his fingernails deep into his arm, piercing the skin, and clawed at the flesh burning beneath the surface.

The repugnant skin.

_His skin._

Encrusted with barnacles and mussels, it tingled as the aquatic parasites rooted themselves deeper into his body. They fed, they bred, and they LIVED - all over him. _In_ him.

His scaled nails scratched something, perhaps the source of the searing torment, nestled in the muscle of his arm.

Did it just.... _twitch_?

He hooked his index finger underneath the object, and with much discomfort, pried it into his clenched hand. Holding his hand up, he could indeed feel the obtrusion move.

A quivering whimper escaped his lips and his heart pounded against his ribs as, one by one; he opened his fingers to find a small crustacean perched on his palm.

It blinked.

He wailed and shook the creature away. The discarded crustacean scampered away and disappeared into the dark unknowns of the Dutchman.

The bile burned as it rose in his throat. He doubled over and retched so violently he thought his back would break during the heaving.

He found himself disoriented on his hands and knees, panting and spitting, until a sound brought his eyes to gaze upon the very vomit he had just ejected. Except, there was no vomit. Algae covered small fish flopped about the floor in front of him. An eel, coated in a mucus film, slithered forward and bared its jagged teeth.

He threw himself backwards until his back slammed into the wall.

Bootstrap rocked in the fetal position, raking his fingernails across his face, screaming his horror incoherently into the night.

_Bootstrap_, if he could still call himself that. How much further could his body corrode before he ceased the ability to call himself a man?

One hundred years servitude in exchange for freedom and delay in judgment, was it worth losing humanity?

Part of the crew. Part of the ship.


	2. What I Am Monster

Title:** What I am. Monster.**  
Broken Compass Prompt:** Monster****  
**Character:** Bootstrap Bill Turner**

**Youth. **

I remember the first time, innocent enough this all began  
She's forgiving and accepting, for a mother always understands  
The impatience of youth trumping ingrained behavior  
She placed the fresh baked dinner bread on the window ledge  
And I dared take and chose not to share  
But broke the plate, admitted fault, and braced for due punishment  
With her laughter I knew my transgression was forgiven  
If only we knew, with what she called me, 'twas my future she prophesied  
"Monster."

**Man.**

Our marriage bed is still warm from the night's embrace.  
Her back is to me, and she is silent, but she sheds tears as her shoulders tremble  
Her voice so sweet, so defeated, breaks my heart, "Yer tearing us apart!"  
I claim, "I be doin' this for the both of you!"  
She cries, "Your doin' this for yerself! You lie!"  
"Father?" whimpers the whelp who bears my name  
"Why are you leaving me?"  
No truthful answer I can forfeit, only my heartfelt "Goodbye."  
Then I leave for the docks, long before the morning light  
Turning my back on my wife, my son, my only kin  
And she does not run after me, tears staining her porcelain face, she cried  
"Monster."

**Death.**

Life sentence in a dark and desolate place  
Murderous and ravenous, vengeful judge and jury assemble,  
Condemn me for the mutiny I did not take part  
Their accusations laid forth, "Y'did this didn't you!"  
With no guilt I claim, "I sent the coin away. I will not lie.  
"Cursed souls ye shall remain."  
Down, down to the watery depths they bury me  
Unable to breath, unable to drown, unable to die  
The days I've withered intertwine with the void of night  
Hope is gone and has left me but a husk of ever burning sin  
And I bow to what come in the endless dark, my own cursed soul to the Devil I confide  
Monster.

**Afterlife.**

My blood, once red and warming, in my pitiless heart is naught but a trace  
Further from man I drift as more and more tis the sea I resemble  
I, century at the mast, under the command of he with no heart  
Transforming, this wicked thing I've become as part of the crew  
Part of the ship eventually my body will lie  
Twice cursed in this hell I attain  
Shackled by myself, not by the Powers that be  
For hours I stare at my own hands wondering why  
Is this is a fair price for what I've done? Can it ever be made right?  
Deep within and covering my skin,  
To what I am, I must abide,  
Monster.

**Re-birth**

Barely knew him as a boy, and even less as a man  
The jagged gash across his ribs, heartless by my own knife, my own hands  
He made a promise to free me from the Devil's hold, and is forever my savior  
Yet I regret, those years ago when I selfishly abandoned him, and I am unworthy of the pledge  
A debt I still owe him and repay him I swear

My son, a better man than his father, shall never demand such atonement  
I am grateful, but not deserving this redeeming gift he has given  
I, born a man, will die a man.  
Not a monster.

* * *

_Decided to try a different style. This idea came from the positive responses I received for my long-winded 'Humanity' drabble and the Broken Compass prompt 'Monster'. Well, in all actuality, this was meant to be a drabble, and as you can see I got a wee-bit carried away. Kudos to all of you who can write a 100 word drabble. They are more difficult than they initially appear!__  
__Oh, and if I ever decide to write in rhyme again, please somebody smack me! Hard!__  
__-bean_


	3. The Dutchman Taketh Me

**The Dutchman Taketh Me**

"_Losing what you were, bit by bit, 'til you end up... end up like poor Wyvern here._"

Wyvern's account of Bootstrap Bill Turner's decent into madness.

Set between DMC and AWE.

* * *

The fear of death tenders one to join the crew and postpone the due judgment.

For most, realization of the cost of their deferment comes far to late.

There is no redemption, only misery, surrender, and loss.

Bill raves incoherently, night and day, says his boy is coming for him, to save him.

What is left of his mind is failing him. He doesn't see his end.

In the somber cast of my lantern I witness his heart break as I ruin his false hope.

I am cruel in my honesty, but Bill needs to know his inescapable fate.

I warn Bill to keep his boy away, that he can't help him.

And I tell him how sorry I am.

It is too late for Bill; he is unable to be saved.

Soon he'll be embedded in the wall next to me.

The carnivorous vessel will take its hold and cradle his body as a welcomed parasite.

Impassioned hungry spurs shall dredge the skin and pervert the flesh.

Hull then bonds with bone, black pitch replaces marrow, and the blood ferments acidic.

The heart beats with the one which rests in dark confinement, locked away from emotion.

Fused together into one organism, dependent on another, closer to coral and further from man.

What was familiar turns foreign, never to be the same. The descent to Hell quickens now.

To scream is futile.

Sound of the singular voice is a distant echo, absorbed by the living ship's own mournful groaning.

Enveloped in a bleak reality, the last grasping of mental conception concedes the cruel truth of serving one hundred years before the mast.

Left unable to determine any sense of self, the human soul recedes and at its death disperses into the sea with the midnight tidewaters.

On this ship, individuality is cumbrous. The crew is the ship.

These words I say are inevitable. A looming, hellish truth that took me nearly a century to accept.

Joined first by the body, then by the mind, and eventually by the soul.

Once taken by the Dutchman, one will never leave.


End file.
